Random thoughts with sporadically profound meaning

“NO” is the most common word to ever come out of a child’s mouth. It’s an instinctual response to any question or suggestion for anyone under the age of three and that response is never second-guessed. So why now, when we have the ability to reason and make an informed decision, based on what is best for us, do we find it so hard to utter that simple word and mean it?

“No” is a complete sentence. It does not require any justification, nor does it need an explanation. It is a succinct and pithy response that needs no further words to make its meaning understood.

For us to procure as much happiness as we can from each day we are afforded in this lifetime, we must learn to make our decisions by putting our happiness first. We must set boundaries for ourselves and embrace and listen to the most important voice we will ever hear – our own. It’s human instinct to want to please other people by saying yes, but how much of ourselves are we giving up by agreeing so quickly and not allowing that inner voice to offer its opinion.

If the answer in your heart is ‘no’, find a gentle way of not accepting the offer or challenge and let that three-year old voice in your head speak for both of you. That voice is giving you some sage advice. You should take it.

In mid-June, I went boldly where I had never gone before – I went to a Sleep Clinic. My doctor is doing her due-diligence to help reveal the potential cause of my high blood pressure and she wanted to find out if Sleep Apnea may be the culprit. I wrote this post about my experience of trying to actually sleep so the study would be effective.

As it turns out, during the nine and a half hours I was incarcerated hooked up to the monitors, I got an assorted six hours of sleep from which they could extrapolate their results. I do have a mild form of Sleep Apnea, but nothing that will require me to wear one of these while I sleep.

I suffer from what they refer to as ‘fragmented sleep’ which is on the mid-to-low-level of Sleep Apnea. The amount of deep sleep I got was on the lower spectrum of what they refer to as normal but I was attached to over three dozen wires and made to sleep on my back. They should be grateful I slept at all under those circumstances, otherwise mine could have been the shortest sleep study in their history.

The fragmented sleep was something I was expecting. I have a brain that is extremely averse to shutting down. Falling asleep some nights is easier than others, but when I wake up at 4:00 am my brain immediately launches into hyper-drive and it is next to impossible to quell the rush of random thoughts. I am lucky if I can get back to sleep before my alarm sounds at 6:30 am.

The doctor at the sleep clinic gave me a prescription for a sleeping pill that I will happily decline to take. As soon as he said the word ‘addictive’, he solidified my objection to taking the pills in the first place. Some of my best ideas for stories, or for my books, come in those wee hours of fragmented sleep and I would hate to still the rushing waters of creativity.

For now, I will be focused on more exercise, perhaps some meditation and whatever else I can do to still my brain so I can get a better quality of sleep. Worst case scenario, book number two will be written before the anticipated deadline and I will have larger bags under my eyes!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am addicted to Pinterest. This glorious website has opened up new avenues of cooking for me as well as opening a few doors to my past. Yesterday was a glowing example of that.

I wasn’t looking for anything specific so when I came across a simple picture of a blueberry muffin, I was immediately transported back to our old house on Foreman Road. I was ten or eleven years old and I was in our kitchen, as I always was on Sunday mornings, making Betty Crocker Blueberry muffins for breakfast.

I loved Sundays. I loved the fact that my parents trusted my ability at such a young age to prepare a breakfast that we would eat in their bedroom, they tucked under the covers and me (and sometimes my brother) sitting at the end of their bed. Thinking back to those wonderful times, I can almost smell the freshly baked morsels just out of the oven and I can see the pat of butter melting into the white cake, making the blueberries glisten in morning light from their bedroom window.

If I close my eyes, I can teleport myself back to that kitchen, mixing the ingredients ever so carefully, taking the lid off the tin of real blueberries and making sure I was careful not to spill the syrup and stain anything in its path.

Just when I feel like my parents have slipped a little further into my memory cache, one simple picture of a blueberry muffin was all it took to bring them stampeding back into my thoughts. When I look back at all those breakfasts in bed, it was never really about making muffins, it was about making memories. And those moments that are now frozen in time will help me hold my parents close forever.

There are a million wooden spoons. I’m sure I could go into any store, from a Walmart to a high-end Kitchen store, to replace the one I have. But the one I have has a special function none of those other spoons would have. My spoon has the ability to transport me back in time.

This wooden spoon is the spoon my mother used to stir her brownie batter and, when I was being good, was the spoon I was allowed to lick the leftover batter from until it was clean. When I became old enough to take over in the kitchen, I was entrusted with the spoon and left on my own to make the brownies without my mom’s help. Even though I was far beyond those childhood years, I still licked the spoon.

This wooden spoon has had an epic journey and has lived in many kitchens but it now finds its place in my home. It was one of the only kitchen items I chose to keep from my mom’s vast collection of kitchen gadgets after she passed away. It shares its space with the shiny stainless steel utensils, in just as shiny a container, on the counter in my kitchen. It looks like a misfit toy lost in the pristine surroundings of Santa’s workshop but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There are times when I am afraid to use the spoon for fear that it will break and I will lose the last tangible part of the life I shared with my mother. It feels like the last piece of her I can physically hold on to, have her feel close to me and be six years old again in our kitchen.

People will tell you “things are just things”, but when those things can keep you connected to people you have lost, those things become so much more than “just things”.

The weekend had arrived and I had my to-do list all mapped out. Friday would be the day of chores since Saturday was going to be our first big check-in and the start of family season at the lodge.

As luck would have it, Friday turned into a spectacular day of weather. In the cooler hours of the morning, I took my garbage to the dump and ran my errands in town. I arrived home knowing that my list of chores had not been completed but when I saw the sun shining on my deck, my list of chores suddenly changed, as did my outfit. I opened all my windows, donned some shorts and a t-shirt and went outside to bask in the sun for as long as I could. As fate would have it, my neighbors chose to embrace the day as well and burn everything they wanted to dispose of and the smoke penetrated every ounce of air I was trying to breathe. My dog and I quickly made our way indoors and wistfully closed the windows.

I stood inside, my head going back and forth from my vacuum to my laptop and I surreptitiously neglected my remaining chores. I opened my laptop and sat down to write what would end up being over three thousand words for my new book. My dog was still shedding even though I had her shaved, my carpet looked like my dog had exploded, more dust had settled on every surface in my home and my dishes were still waiting to be put away but I didn’t care. I deferred the menial tasks to concentrate more on the things that truly make me happy.

My vacuum will still be in the same place on Sunday. My dog will still be shedding and the dust particles will still be dancing in the light that filters through my windows. But, just maybe, those words that flowed through me on Friday would not have waited for another day.

Do more of what makes you happy and do it often. Life is much too short to spend it doing things that don’t truly inspire you and make you feel like you are living your best life. I spent a great deal of my past living for others and now it is time to put aside the things that can wait and focus on the things that consume my thoughts and make me the happiest version of myself.

The title of this post directly relates to the TV show Suits that I have been obsessively watching on Netflix and I am ashamed to admit that I have been neglecting my duty as a writer. I should be actively pounding the virtual pavement to find an agent but I have shelved my book for the last couple of weeks because my spare time is waning and my creativity is in hibernation. Watching Suits gives me the chance to escape into some brilliant writing, but it’s not my writing. I still have a few queries out there and certainly still have some chapters to go through with a fine-tooth comb but the spark of my enthusiasm had almost been extinguished.

The other day, however, I had the chance to speak to one of the people who read my book and my fire was fueled once again. Her rhetoric about my story made me giddy and the child-like excitement I had when I finished writing the book bubbled up inside me and lit a fire within me. She said the story was fantastic and she could definitely see it being made into a movie.

So once again, I am cutting out blocks of time throughout my day to edit what needs to be edited and query like there is no tomorrow. Somewhere out there, an agent is looking for MY book and somehow, when the timing is just right, our paths will cross. I may have been slightly discouraged with the lengthy nature of this process but I also know I am willing to continue the journey and follow it to its happy ending.

Recently, I was directed by my doctor to go to a Sleep Clinic to determine whether or not I have sleep apnea. While I understand the need to have more than two dozen wires glued to my head and body, I do not understand the theory behind calling it a “sleep” clinic. There is little sleep to be had.

Once I had undergone the necessary time it took to forcefully glue over two dozen small sensors to my head, face, shoulders and legs, I was fitted with a few other accoutrements and left to read for a while. When the technician finally came in to hook me up to the monitors and tuck me in, he told me I had to sleep on my back. Houston, we have a problem.

I am not professing to be an authority on sleep habits, but I am certainly the foremost expert on my sleep habits and I knew it was going to be a rough night. I am a side-sleeper, I have been since I was a kid, so trying to fall asleep lying on my back, afraid to move because I was wired for sound, was next to impossible.

I did manage to drift off a few times but woke up abruptly when I tried to roll onto my side because I was constricted by the conglomeration of wires. I’m not sure how accurately my results will portray my sleep habits since I wasn’t allowed to sleep as I usually do but I do hope they have some answers for me. I’m certainly not going to be doing that again!